Murder in Band Camp X
by adulaith
Summary: When Knightsbridge High goes to Summer Band Camp X, things get strange. Instruments disappear, first chairs are injured, and someone's playing strange music in the dead of night. But when a student ends up dead, things begin to get serious... ::chap 10!::
1. Charlie and Blaze

Murder in Band Camp X.

Chapter One: Charlie and Blaze

~*~

It was absolutely unimaginable.

Totally beyond comprehension.

I, Charlotte Maines, am going to band camp. For the first time. Ever.

-

The words looked considerably more stupid on paper than they had sounded in her head, Charlotte decided. And for that matter, they were beginning to sound just as idiotic in her mind. She scrubbed her eraser across the paper until the words were erased and stuck the pencil over her ear as she contemplated how to put exactly what she was feeling into words.

Screw words. The one thing Charlotte "Charlie" Maines knew better than anything else was music. The small clarinet case clutched in her arms had grown warm from contact, and she wondered if anyone would notice if she slipped outside for just a minute, before the busses began to board.

A quick appraisal of the vast bus station revealed that no one in particular was paying attention to her. There were numerous groups of high school students like her, bunched up and clutching various instrument cases - or, in the low brass instances, standing, sitting, or lying on them possessively. She didn't recognize any of them – she was new to the district and school hadn't even started up yet. It was still mid-summer, and she was headed off to the Knightsbridge High yearly mandatory Summer Band Camp X.

She stood quickly, abandoning her belongings save her clarinet case and making her way to the double glass doors. Once outside, she detoured to the side of the building. There, with the company of the brick wall and a small enclave of trees and shrubs, she assembled her clarinet and spread her music out in front of her, weighting the paper down with small rocks. The mid-Texas blazing summer heat bore down on her, but she didn't seem to notice as her fingers found keyholes and the familiar sense of detachment filled her mind.

Then she began to play.

-

Kevin Durham hated waiting rooms. They reminded him too much of doctor's offices and other unhappy places. So when he and his group of fellow brass players were told that sadly, there was a delay, and unfortunately, they were going to have to wait another two hours for the overnight, he promptly bolted.

"Dude! Blaze, where ya goin'?" His friend Mike Salieri yelled as he made for the double glass doors.

"Out, man! I can't stand this!" he called back, and pushed his way outside.

He was met by the sweet sounds of a clarinet, playing a cheerful little tune with a lively pace. Whoever was playing it was good, he thought, silently impressed. He followed the sounds to the edge of the building and poked his head around to find a rather unusual sight. The clarinetist, a petite girl looking to be about seventeen, had just-above chin length short brown hair that gleamed reddish in the sun, cropped closely to her head and framing her curved face. She had on low, loose jeans and a tight army green tank top with dark, olive colored flip-flops. Her eyes were closed, ignoring the music in front of her, and she tapped one foot gently as her fingers fairly danced along her instrument.

Blaze was content to watch as she played.

-

When she was seven, Melody Waters has found her dad's old trombone in the attic. She had brought the old thing out and put her lips to the rusty old mouthpiece, and proceeded to blow the hell out of it. Since then, her father had invested in private lessons for on her beloved instrument, and she spent her years growing more and more proficient on the trombone.

Now she was going to band camp as a freshman, and she was going to beat up some cocky 'boner seniors who thought they were all that and a bag of extreme nacho Dorito chips. She was beginning to look forward to it. In fact, she was standing in a group of brass players and was nearly drooling at the concept of beating them all.

"Dude, what is Blaze's problem?" Mike Salieri wondered as Blaze shot out the door, wrenching Mellie's attention away from her daydreams. Mike was a junior and pretty much sucked at 'bone. He just stayed in band because he had more fun that way.

"You moron, Blaze has claustrophobia." Gerald Church, also known as "Scary Jerry", muttered. "He can't stand waiting rooms. I've known this dude since he was eight. Trust me."

"He's a brass player! Come on!" Mike scoffed. "Don't tell me Blaze Durham can't stand a crowd."

"Its true, kiddo." Merry Pinkerton, an extremely tall tuba player, interjected. She was a senior and the best tuba player Knightsbridge High had seen since 1983. She was also the toughest low brass member you'd ever meet, and she'd kick your ass if you look at her sideways twice. Which wasn't to say she was butch – Merry was dating a senior trumpet named Oscar Guiterrez and they were extremely devoted to each other.

Mike shrugged. "Unbelievable. Blaze is claustrophobic. Who woulda thunk?"

-

Charlie was beginning to tire of her music. She'd been playing this piece for months and there was still a small problem whenever she hit the low E… it never failed to sound completely flat, regardless of her embouchure or where she was pulled out. She hit the low E once more and sighed angrily as it resonated with the same, flat pitch.

"Dammit," she muttered, and opened her eyes. She might as well head on back inside, just in case there were any important announcements.

Instead of the empty enclave she expected, she found a tall guy about seventeen with a shock of bright red hair watching her, leaning casually against the corner of the wall. He was wearing loose blue jeans and a fitting white shirt that outlined well-defined muscles. Her first thought was, _This guy's hot_.

Her next was, _Why the hell has he been watching me?_

"You're good," he said before she could open her mouth. "Really good." Charlie immediately blushed and ducked her head.

"I'm okay," she responded, fighting the red in her cheeks. She always got shy around good-looking guys.

"No, I'm serious. You're _really _good. If you can play the camp try-out music that well, I'd say you've got first chair." He stuck a hand out and pulled away from the all. "I'm Kevin Durham, but most people call me Blaze."

"Charlotte Maines. But most people call _me_ Charlie." She responded, shaking his hand and trying to ignore her stomach fluttering. _My face must be flaming, _she thought desperately.

"I guess I'll see you at camp," he said. "Maybe we'll be in the same band." He gave her a small wave and headed back inside the bus terminal. Charlie watched him go, and then sat down in the grass and began to gather up her music.

"Yeah," she echoed to herself. "I guess I'll see you."


	2. Buscapades

Murder in Band Camp X

Chapter Two: Buscapades

-

Two hours came and went, and there still weren't any busses to be seen. Blaze started pacing the small area in between rows of terminal seats and tried not to think about how many people were shoved into such a small bus station.

"Dude! Blaze! Chill!" Mike exploded, fed up with Blaze's impatience. "Pacing back and forth isn't going to make the busses come any faster!"

"About the only thing it _is_ doing is making me dizzy," Scary Jerry muttered, closing his eyes. One hand tapped out a rhythm against the side of his bass trombone case. "Quit the walking or I'll have to pound you." That was no small threat from Scary, he was six-foot-five and often gave off a burly athletic air. Truth was, Scary was more passionate about music than he was about physical sports like football – much to the chagrin of the varsity football coach, who tried to badger Scary into joining every year – and would rather practice his bass than pummel a guy. That wasn't to say he wouldn't pummel Blaze in a heartbeat if he felt the inclination, so Blaze parked himself in an uncomfortable plastic chair and tried to think happy thoughts.

"Wait, wait, wait, hold up here," Lee Harper, a junior baritone, said and stood up and began craning his neck to peer across the crowd of band students. "Who's the chick?"

"What chick?" Mike asked, immediately interested. Lee pointed her out to Mike and they both nodded appreciatively.

"Sweet," Mike said, already beginning to formulate a plan. "I bet I could accidentally bump into her somewhere…"

"Someone better warn that girl," Blaze joked, turning to see who they were referring to. "Which one?"

"The chick with the green tank top and short brown hair," Lee said. "You see her? I wonder where she came from? Maybe she's a froshie… she don' look that young, though…" he trailed off.

"That's Charlie!" Blaze burst out. "I just met her outside… she's really good at the clarinet." He lapsed into silence as he recalled her talented music. "Stay offa her, Mike. I think I like this one."

"Who says you get dibs?" Mike scowled, but shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I know for a fact there's a sophie flute who's got it bad for me…" A pleased expression crossed his face. "Maybe I oughtta make something out of that…" He wandered off in search of his sophomore flute, and Blaze continued to watch Charlie from across the room… she was really pretty, he thought. I wonder if she's got a boyfriend…

"ALL RIGHT! A FUCKIN' BUS!" One of the french horns bellowed. He abruptly ducked behind a large sousaphone case as one of the band directors gave him an evil look. He was spared a lecture, though, as the mass of band geeks hastily grabbed their belongings and formed a massive rush for the door. Harried bus attendants tried to slow the crush of students, but they were generally ignored as the long awaited for busses beckoned.

"The Brassholes claim the back of Bus 3!" Scary yelled, and the line for Bus 3 abruptly disintegrated as people made for another vehicle. Blaze grinned; it was sometimes a great advantage to have Scary on your side.

-

Melody heard Scary call Bus 3 and quickly made her way to where he and a group of other people stood.

"What's the Brassholes?" she asked him, shouting over the din of loud, hyper band students. Scary grinned down at her.

"Who are the Brassholes? Only the best upperclassmen brass players," he told he. "But you can come along, anyway." Mellie slapped him a high-five and picked up her stuff, trailing behind a crowd of brass people as they boarded Bus 3.

As it turned out, the Brassholes were pretty much the upper tier of brass players. Mike stayed in because he was an original founder, "back in the day", as he referred to his froshie – and Scary, Blaze, and Merry's sophie – year. Aside from those four founding brass players was the baritone Lee; a french horn player named Scott Winter (the same one who had announced the busses arrival); two other sophie trumpets named Penny Christopher and Utah Kenmore ("Yeah," Utah had said when he was introduced, "Like the state and the dishwasher."); and another baritone by the name of Donald Kensington, who was also a freshman like her.

They were also all crazy out of their minds, Mellie soon found out.

"Let's get this show on the road!" Utah yelled. "Let's blow this popsicle stand! Band Camp X! Band Camp X!" He attempted to start a chant, but nobody joined him, so he shrugged and turned around to drape himself over the seat and chat with Penny.

"Ow ow ow OW OW OW!" Mike cried in rising volume as his seatmate, Lee, tried to pinch him to death. "You punk! Enough! UNCLE! DAMMIT!"

"Hahahahaha!" Lee cackled. "Death by pinching! The ultimate sentence!"

"So," Scary asked Mellie, where she sat huddled into her seat in the very back of the bus, "Ready to leave yet?"

"Is there actually a way out of this asylum?" she retorted. "Or is that a trick question?" But she grinned anyway and stuck her hand through the seat to pinch Mike, who had finally gotten Lee to stop. He let out a loud bellow and attempted to smother the baritone player with a complimentary pillow.

"What – I didn't – " Lee tried to say, but was muffled as Mike bashed the pillow against his face. Mellie grinned with delight and Scary let out a loud, reverberating guffaw.

"You'll fit right in, froshie." He told her, clapping her on the back and nearly toppling her off the seat. "You'll fit right in."

-

Charlie tried to ignore the huge fray that was taking place behind her seat. She wished she had heard when Bus 3 was called… she would have chosen another one.

Then Blaze got on the bus, and she suddenly didn't regret choosing this certain bus as much anymore. She tried to act like she hadn't seen him get on and made herself look busy until he stopped by her seat.

"Hey, Charlie." He grinned down at her. "Looking forward to the ride?"

"With this crowd behind me?" she said, grinning shyly. "I think I'm going to be vastly entertained." Blaze let out a loud laugh.

"What, the Brassholes? Aww, they're as meek as kittens. Milder than– " he was cut off as a flying pillow caught him in the face. "Hold that thought," he told her, grabbing the pillow and pouncing on Mike, intent upon cutting off his airflow. After a few minutes he returned to Charlie's seat, while behind him, Mike yelled hoarsely for vengeance.

"So, Charlie. You new here?" Blaze said, settling down comfortably into the seat beside her. "I don't remember you last year, and you certainly don't look like a froshie."

"A froshie?" Charlie asked, wrinkling her nose. "That sounds like a 7-11 slush drink."

"A froshie is what we call a freshman," Utah stuck in, hanging over the back of Blaze's seat. "Then we have the sophies for sophomores, and some idiots think it's amusing to label juniors as junies, but it hasn't caught on so far." Then he let out a loud squawk as Penny found ample excuse to tickle the back of his knees, and he fell backwards onto his fellow trumpet and attempted to squish her.

"You heard the man," Blaze continued cheerfully. He didn't seem at all surprised at what had just taken place, and Charlie concluded that it must be normal behavior for this bunch. "So what year are you?"

"I'm a senior," she said. "I just transferred here from out in west Texas, and the band directors said Band Camp X was mandatory." She shrugged and patted her clarinet case possessively. "So here we are."

"Welcome to Knightsbridge Maroon Band," Blaze uttered solemnly.

"Mess with us," Merry yelled across the aisle,

"And we'll Marooooon you!" The entire bus shouted in unison. They followed the cry with a chant, which Charlie caught on to quickly. "Goooooo M'ROON! Gooooo WHITE! Gooooo M'ROONIES! Fight fight fight! M'roonies fight, M'roonies fight, M'roon M'roonies, FIGHT FIGHT!" Then the entire bus was filled with a loud, low-pitched MOO-ing. Drumline members air-drumming and shouting out the beats punctuated the chant, and the entire thing followed by hearty backslapping and loud, raucous yelling.

"We have spirit." Blaze told her. Charlie nodded, eyes wide, as she took in what seemed to be the most psychotic group of people she had ever met.

"My old high school was nothing like this," she managed to say before a saxophone somehow achieved getting his instrument stuck in the overhead compartment, and the rest of the bus leapt to laugh at him and help make his situation worse.

-

Things had finally settled down, Blaze noted as the charter Greyhound made its way through the night. As the sun had set, the band members has grown even more hyper and disruptive, and they had continued to drive the bus the driver crazy until Mr. Defton, one of the band directors, lost his head and screamed bloody murder at them until they shut up. Lack of sleep finally set in and the students draped themselves across each other in a big mess and fell asleep as a group. Blaze was sitting in his seat with his eyes half-shut, drowsily contemplating the next day.

Charlie slept on his left. Blaze had decided to sit next to her and though he had migrated all over the bus, switching seats and sitting on people in order to chat with others as band members were apt to do on long bus trips, he had always returned back to Charlie's seat. Now she was nestled against his shoulder, pillow across her lap and one slim hand clutching his arm in her sleep. Blaze grinned sleepily and shifted a little, so she fell more against his chest, and he surreptitiously snaked one arm around her shoulder.

The clarinet player sighed and burrowed closer into his arms, and Blaze tried not to smile too wide. His eyes drifted shut, and he fell asleep to dream about clarinets and band camp.

-

Charlie was jarred awake as Bus 3 began swerving wildly. Around her, band students were being risen from their slumber, and sleepy cries of, "What the hell?" and worse versions arose from the tired mass. One poor freshman trombone, still more asleep than awake, yelled "Stop the merry-go-round, I wanna get _off_…!" His seatmate punched him in the shoulder and there was a few second worth of laughter, but all of it was cut off and turned into a huge, unanimous scream as the bus jerked to the side and teetered dangerously on its left wheels.

"What's going on here?!" Mr. Defton yelled, lurching up the aisle to the frightened bus driver. "What's the problem?"

"My steering wheel is locked up!" the bus driver yelled, working himself into a panic. "I can't turn this thing at all! And we're in Texas _Hill_ Country, sir, this road is one giant swerve!" He jerked the wheel forcefully, but it only move a fraction, and the bus was getting dangerously close to the steep road edge on the right.

"Move!" Scary yelled the bus' population. "Everyone to the left of the bus! Just pretend like we're trying to tip it like we do at every away game! NOW MOVE!"

As a collective, the band members threw themselves across the aisle. Charlie was slammed against the bus wall as Blaze tried to shield her from Merry and her boyfriend Oscar's weight. She tried hold in the scream bubbling up inside of her as the charter bus rested on all its left wheels, the right side of the vehicle losing contact with the road. The bus let out a groan as the wheels protested the sudden weight, and Mr. Defton was screaming "Put on the brakes, put on the brakes!"

She heard the bus driver bellowing, "I AM!", and then the huge Greyhound collapsed on its left side. Her last thought before her head struck the glass window and rendered her unconsciousness was the fact that Blaze had his arms around her waist, holding her close to him as she slipped into darkness.


	3. Hospital Fun and Back to Camp

Murder in Band Camp X

Chapter Three: Hospital Fun and Back to Camp

-

The bus windows shattered with a massive crash as the left side of the Greyhound hit the road. The impact cut the bus' speed down to nothing so there was no residual movement, but broken glass shards sliced up Melody's arm and face and left slow rivulets of blood trickling down her neck. She could hear screams up and down the bus as people stood up in between horizontal bus seats and tried to make sense of what had just gone on. Many had awoken from slumber as the bus fell, and dazed cries of "What's going on? What happened?" filled the air. Over the general din, she could hear Lee howling in pain, yelling obscenities about his arm.

It was hard to think over the stinging pain in her arms and face, but dimly she realized a massive bass trombonist was crushing her. "Scary?" she said hoarsely, trying to move her arms but finding them pinned beneath his weight.

"I'm alive," the burly senior muttered weakly. "But my ribs will never be the same."

"Scary, _my _ribs will never be the same if you don't get offa them," Melody wheezed.

"Oh." Scary grunted again, and his huge weight was suddenly lifted off of her as he pushed up with his muscled arms and removed him, Penny, and Utah off of her back in one great heave. Penny squeaked and scrambled off to stand in the limited space beside him, and Utah scrambled up onto the seat that know lied parallel to the ceiling.

Gentle hands picked her up off of the offending glass and Melody felt herself being cradled in Scary's arms, and he was asking her if she thought she could stand up by herself.

"Of course I can," she murmured, and promptly passed out.

-

"Charlie? Blaze asked, holding the girl close with one arm and brushing hair away from her face with the other hand. Her hazel eyes remained closed and there was blood flowing steadily from a long, angry gash across the top of her temple. "Charlie!"

There was no response. He could vaguely hear Lee screaming about a broken arm, but Charlie wasn't waking up and her gash showed no sign of slowing the blood flow. Her arms fell limply against his side and he started to panic as he head lolled back with the characteristic boneless look only the unconscious could achieve. Blaze started to panic.

"She's no waking up!" He yelled, shaking Charlie gently and still getting no response. Oscar and Merry, crowded uncomfortably behind him, struggled to stand up and get out of his way. "Somebody help me get her up!"

"Here, let me help." It was Utah, dangling precariously from the high seats, and he grasped the underside of Charlie's arms and help to pull her up as Oscar and Merry hastily made their way to the front of the bus, where the empty windshield provided an exit. Blaze wrapped his arms around Charlie's waist and with Utah's help, they managed to get the unconscious clarinetist into a semi-standing position and lean her against the seats.

"Scary!" Blaze bellowed, looking for the burly trombone to help cart their sleeping beauty out of the bus. God knew he watched a lot of movies, and typical explosions usually followed scenarios like this as the gas tank caught fire. Scary was at the front of the bus, shepherding out underclassmen and carrying Melody in his arms.

"I'll be back!" he called without turning around, and he stepped out of the broken windshield.

"We've got to get her out of here," Blaze said urgently to Utah, who was hanging beside his head. Even in this accident he was managing to enjoy himself, but there were shadows in his grin and he dropped to the ground, glass crunching beneath his sneakers.

"I don't know anything about head injuries," he complained. "That Health course they forced us to take last year was _pointless_." But he was yanking a shirt out of somebody's travel bag and tearing it into manageable pieces, then wrapping them carefully – and not too tightly – around his charge's head. Then he helped load her into Blaze's arms and turned the trumpet player towards the exit.

The bus was now empty as uninjured students had fled quickly, and the distance towards safety looked incredibly far. But he had to get this girl to professional medical care.

"Out you go," Utah said, and he started for the door.

-

Lee's arm was definitely broken. The searing pain was beating at the back of his eyes and his vision was graying as he staggered from the bus and collapsed to his knees. "Mother of God!" he bellowed, trying to drown out the agony with the sound of his voice, and he briefly wondered how and why he was still conscious. A dark shape was heading towards him, indistinguishable in the dark of the night, and Lee grimaced and turned to see if the bus had been vacated yet.

The headlights of the Greyhound shone feebly, and the indoor lights glowed with only a token effort, but it was light enough for him to see Blaze take slow, uncertain steps from the wrecked bus, carrying a motionless form in his arms and being trailed by Utah. He looked about ready to fall over.

"Weakling trumpet," he muttered to himself. Cradling his broken arm to his chest, he managed to wrap it up the ripped areas of his shirt in a makeshift sling. Trying desperately to ignore the pain, he lurched towards Blaze and whoever his burden might be.

"It's Charlie," Blaze gasped as Lee neared him. "She won't wake up and she's got a bad head wound." Then he saw Lee's arm. "What happened to your arm?"

"Gimme the girl," Lee instructed, ignoring the question.

"But-"

"No buts!" Lee barked, using one of their band director's favorite phrases. "It's just a sprain, now give her here. Put her over my shoulder." Panic clouded Blaze's mind and he forgot about Lee's earlier screaming, and transferred his burden to the baritone's unhurt shoulder. Lee stifled a sharp gasp as it jostled his injured arm, but he wrapped his good one around the back of Charlie's knees in a classic fireman carry.

In the distance, ambulance sirens began to wail.

-

Strange ceiling tiles swam through her vision. A string of questions of questions ran through her mind, and Charlie shook her head in an effort to clear the fog from her mind.

__

Bad idea. White pain lanced through her skull and she sucked in a sharp breath and squeezed her eyes closed, tears leaking through the edges as she fought not to cry. Crying would involve sobbing, and that would be more pain than she could bear.

"Charlie?" someone asked, and a warm hand laced fingers around hers. Her eyes fluttered open, and she saw Blaze's face hovering worriedly over her own.

"Hi," she whispered, trying to fight tears. "Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital," another voice said, and she moved her head – much more slowly this time – to see Utah sitting in a chair. Beside him sat Megan Bergstrom, the senior Clarinet section leader whom she had met briefly on the bus, asleep in her chair and lying against Utah's shoulder. "Don't wake her," Utah grinned. "I'm pimpin' it."

Charlie let out a small giggle. "How long have you guys been here?"

"All night," Blaze interjected, bringing her attention back to his still-concerned face. "You got to the hospital at about 12:30 last night, and after you got out of the ER, and stopped being in 'critical condition', they put you in here… Mr. Defton gave us permission to stay."

"You've been here all night?" she asked softly, and Blaze gripped her hand.

"Of course," he said, and Charlie felt the tears began to overpower her resolve.

"Great," came Megan's voice, tired and filled with gentle sarcasm. "I woke up in the Young and the Restless." Her eyes widened as Utah grabbed her chin and looked her straight in the eyes.

"What are you talking about, Annabelle?" he asked in his deepest, most mysterious voice. "Do you have amnesia, my love? Remember, you're pregnant with an unknown man's child and cheating on your boyfriend Enrique with me."

"The nightmare continues!" she squawked, batting his hands away and standing up, taking refuge behind Charlie's bed. The clarinetist giggled again as Utah made wounded puppy eyes at her section leader, then stifled a huge yawn.

"What medicine did they give me?" she asked drowsily, and Blaze grinned ruefully.

"Enough to knock you out for a full eight hours," he told her. "Go back to sleep. I'll be here when you wake up."

With that reassurance in her mind, Charlie lapsed back into dreams as Utah chased Megan from the room, calling out pet names as the frightened section leader raced down the hallway.

-

Three days later, the injured band members were in a complimentary hospital van, carting the missing students the last couple of miles to Band Camp. Aside from a freshman french horn named Beth that had already been sent back two days before with minor sprains and a small hairline fracture in her wrist, there had been no other injuries from the accident. Lee was slumped against the back of his seat, right arm encased in a clean white cast, and Melody sat across from him. Charlie was in the front seat, where the bouncing was at its least, so her concussion wouldn't worsen. The doctors had told her she was lucky there wasn't a fracture; as it was, her head was going to be sore for at least a good two weeks, and she was going to have a big scab, followed by a big scar, once the bandage came off.

But the point was they were all finally on their way to camp. The rest of the Knightsbridge Maroon Band had been there for four days, and the three of them were uncertain as to what devious plans the Brassholes had devised to constitute a 'Welcome Back' party.

"Here we are, kids," Mr. Defton said as the bus made one last turn onto a narrow road that wound its way through Texas drought-resistant brush and harsh mesquite. Interspersed between the unruly growth were relatively large pines, small rivulets of tree sap glistening in the hot summer sun. Charlie hoped the camp itself was more aesthetic than this. "Just a few more minutes…"

As they rounded the last bend, the came upon a huge clearing filled with people. Then entire 300 piece Knightsbridge Band had assembled in all their instrumental glory, and as soon as the van door opened, they – lead by the three drum majors Charlie had yet to meet – burst into the school alma mater.

Inside the van, Lee let out a huge groan. "Public situations," he sighed. "Too much opportunity to make an ass of one's self." Ignoring the dirty look Mr. Defton gave him, he hopped out of the band and did his best imitation of the Prince of Wales. Giggling, Charlie and Melody exited behind him.

"Goooo M'ROON!" The band shouted as the alma mater ended, and this time, the drumline was drumming on real drums and the ringing sound of cymbal crashes and rimshots filled the air. Melody, Lee, and Charlie all joined in. "Goooo WHITE! Goooo M'ROONIES! FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT! M'roonies fight, m'roonies fight, m'roon m'roonies, FIGHT FIGHT!" Then the rumbling sounds of a huge 5A high school band mooing filled the air. Grinning wide enough to fear her cheeks would split, Charlie followed the hyper band nerds to the Pavilion, and open-door area filled with picnic tables piled high with good stuff in honor of the injured ones' return. For the first time, Charlie felt like she fit in.

Merry had it right when she proposed the toast. "To band!" she yelled, throwing back a shot of fruit punch. "The biggest and best family you'll ever have for four years!"


	4. Water Wars

Murder in Band Camp X

Chapter Four: Water Wars

-

After the initial party, Band Camp had shaken down into regular camp routine. People returned to their cabins and the students, Melody soon found out, were separated by instruments and _not_ by gender.

Which meant she was stuck in a cabin full of raucous, annoying, loud, and most of all, _dumb_ trombone guys. Even worse, they were horny.

__

All the time.

"Hey, gorgeous," one of them leered at her the day after she returned to camp. "You never know if today could be your last day in this life. Why don't you make the most of it in my bunk tonight?" Mark Wegner's taunts had been needling her all day and she finally lost it and snapped back.

"Go to hell, Mark." She retorted. "If you can't get a girl in your bunk bed at home, why would you be able to get one in a bunk bed at camp?"

"Ohhhh," the trombone cabin voiced appreciatively. Mark flushed angrily as many of his fellow brass players snickered at him.

"Hey," he growled at her, grabbing her wrist and squeezing as hard as he could. Asshole he might be, but he was a junior and he _was_ a lot bigger than she was. Melody winced and tried to pull away but he only tightened his grip. "You don't make fun of _me_, froshie."

"She'll make fun of you if she wants, Mark." Scary rumbled as he stepped into the cabin. One big hand settled threateningly on his shoulder and tightened his hold just enough to be barely painful. "If you or anyone of your scummy friends lays a hand on her, I'm holding _you _personally responsible." Mark struggled to contain his anger and finally scowled at Melody.

"Lucky you have a bodyguard, froshie," he said angrily, and shook off Scary's hold on his shoulder. He then stalked out of the cabin and down the winding forest path, followed by one of his nameless underclassman groupies.

"I'd like to apologize for him," the trombone section leader, a senior named Chris, spoke up. "Whatever he does, don't think he represents our section. He's just an overall ass with a superiority complex.

"Yeah," a sophie added. "We won't let him get near you." He gave her a grin, and then lapsed into a friendly leer. "But anytime you get lonely at night, our bunk beds are really quite roomy…" He ducked as Melody chucked a pillow at him, and the cabin erupted into laughter.

But that night before they went to bed, Scary moved his bed closer to hers so that anyone looking for her during the night would be right beside him, as well. Melody waited until the room was asleep until she finally let herself relax, and when Scary stuck his arm across the empty space and put his hand in hers, she clutched it gratefully and drifted to sleep.

-

The morning was beautiful; Charlie thought dreamily, as she watched the sun climb over the horizon and struggled through the trees until it broke free of the green branches and fairly leapt into the sky. The sunrise took all of thirty minutes, but they weren't due at breakfast until eight, so she let herself lie lazily in bed and watch the gold, purple and scarlet fade to a bright, sunshine yellow.

Then she forced herself to leave her warm, comfortable sleeping bag and wandered to the girls showers, where she washed her hair and as an afterthought, used some of her good shampoo that made her hair smell like warm vanilla.

Of course, she wasn't doing it for Blaze. She was doing it because she felt like smelling good, that was all. _Of course it is,_ she told herself mentally. _You know you're hoping…_ well, she didn't quite know what she was hoping, but she was definitely hoping it would happen.

She decided to change and head for the pavilion before she could confuse her already romance-addled mind further.

-Later…

The pavilion was already half-full by the time she got down there, and the warm, inviting smell of cinnamon coffeecake made her stomach rumble hungrily for food. Across the pavilion sat Blaze, his red hair standing out even in the crowd of band members, and she wove her way through the picnic table to sit down next to him. He gave her a grin and entwined his fingers through her own.

"There's the illustrious Concussion Girl!" Utah said loudly, even though he was sitting directly across the table from her. "She's return from fighting crime in Hospital Land and will now grace the hopeless confusion of Band Camp X with her unconscious efforts to keep Blaze-man and Utah-boy from removing her from a wrecked cabin! Watch out – she'll bash her head against the picnic table if you're not careful!"

"Utah!" Penny exclaimed. "That's not funny at all!" But she was fighting back a grin and the table burst into laughter as Charlie began to giggle uncontrollably.

"Utah, I couldn't help being unconscious," Charlie tried to defend herself, but Utah held one hand up to silence her.

"No need, Concussion Girl," he said gravely. "I quite understand the immense pressures of your job. You don't have to explain to Utah-boy the details of your daily battles against consciousness."

Mike, Scary and Melody were approaching, and Utah shifted his attention to waving wildly, drawing the three brass players over to the table. "Thanks," drawled Scary as they were sitting down. "I never would have found you without the energetic waving."

"No problem," Utah said easily, and commenced waving frantically as he spotted Merry and Oscar, who were closely followed by Lee and Donald. The Brasshole table was filled as Scott came down from the french horn cabin, and soon they were chatting about the drill they were about to learn when they hit the field for March Time.

All talk was banished as soon as the kitchen staff began filing out with plates piled with coffeecake, and the pavilion quieted as the band commenced shoving food into their mouths.

"So we're starting this year's drill today," Donald mumbled around a large mouthful, which he chased down with a glass of milk. "I hear its pretty good, too."

"Anything's better than last year's," Lee muttered, but stuck a forkful of food in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "What's the contest music?"

"We're doing excerpts from Dvorak's New World Symphony!" Melody said happily. "I love that stuff."

"Dvorak's good," said Merry, rather surprised. "I didn't think Mr. Defton had that much good taste left in him after he went through the eighties." The table laughed appreciatively, although Charlie wasn't sure about the reference.

"It's because Westhouse retired," Blaze said, referring to the old, crotchety band director in charge of show music. "Now that he's gone, we can play fun stuff."

"God, that man was a beast," Mike recalled. "Always obsessing over the low brass. He fretted over us twenty-four seven, like some paranoid froshie mom at the first football game. He didn't retire willingly, did he? I think they forced him out…"

"Yeah, they had to browbeat him into announcing his retirement," Scott said. "He threw an absolute fit and refused to rehearse us that day."

"Which wasn't a bad deal, if I do say so myself," Blaze grinned. "If I recall correctly, we had wheelie-chair races down the hallway. And I won."

"You did not!" Merry protested. "I won! Remember that _you_ found a way to smash into the instrument lockers and nearly broke your neck when a tuba fell on you."

"Fine, ruin my fun." Blaze sulked. "I demand a rematch when we get back to school."

"You're on, trumpet boy!" Merry laughed. Before she could open her mouth to taunt Blaze any longer, the big brass bell that signaled March Time rang overhead. Moaning and grumbling filled they air as the group of Brass and their single woodwind member vacated the picnic table and the Pavilion, stopping by their respective cabins to put on sneakers and gather up sunscreen and water bottles.

Then they headed for the practice field, a large expanse of green pavement, to learn drill.

-

Lee and Donald were lying on the practice field during the twenty-minute water break, fanning themselves with their hats and complaining to each other about the heat.

"I hate Texas weather!" Lee moaned. "It's always so damn hot, humid, and muggy… you think by now the technology to alter the weather would have been invented. We could be marching on a nice, cool fall day, but the idiots graduating at MIT are majoring in things like aeronautics and calculus. Psh. Losers."

"We should build an indoor marching hall," Donald suggested. "Air-condition, so students won't pass out like they do every year." Today was the first day for March Time and no one had passed out as of yet, but they still had a good two weeks left. That left plenty of time for a froshie to black out because they couldn't listen to common sense and had locked their knees back.

"Comfortable there?" a voice asked mischievously, and Lee squinted up into the sun to see the dim outline of Utah standing above him.

"You could say that-" he began, but was cut off in mid-sentence as a cooler full of water was dumped on his face.

"Utah!" Lee bellowed, leaping to his feet and giving chase to the already fleeing sophomore clown. He called back to his fellow baritone Donald for help, and the rest of the band, seeing the chase, was quick to join sides. Hidden water guns were pulled from backpacks and smaller ones from pockets, and ice cubes were lobbed across the field as ammo.

"Section war!" a senior saxophone player named Fabian Hernandez bellowed, and yelling band students quickly isolated themselves even further.

"Brassholes, ho!" Scary yelled, and they gathered around him excitedly, clutching bottles, coolers, water guns, and even a package of balloon already being filled up. Together, they had the biggest arsenal in the band, and they quickly staked out their base, positioned behind a small grove of scraggly Texas trees on the edge of the practice field.

"We hit the Saxes first, they're the smallest section, Lee said, laying down the plan. "Merry, Donald, and Utah will attack on the front, making a whole lot of noise and waving around a couple of balloons. You keep their attention and Penny and Mike will go around back, spray them down with the hose that's connected to the shed." The Saxes had failed to find the hose behind their base, and the Brassholes needed that to supply themselves with water for balloons and bottles. "The rest of you, stand back beyond their range and batter them with the rest of the filled balloons. Now move, move, move!"

"This is like a bad Disney movie," Charlie whispered to Blaze as they gathered water balloons in their arms and made for the Sax base. Around them, the sounds of a water war being fought raged with characteristic band humor.

"Your momma played the 'bone!" One ruthless clarinet yelled as she flung a bucket full of water at an offending flute. "And your daddy played the violin!" The last comment was particularly sadistic – the Knightsbridge String Orchestra was an object of frequent amusement for the band.

"Hey, Blaze," Charlie said, grabbing the trumpet's arm and gesturing with her elbow at the woods. "There's a stash out there." She squinted and tried to make out whatever goodies had been left lying on the ground. "Super-soaker stash!"

"Abandon the balloons!" Blaze cried, and flung his entire armful at a passing flutist, who screeched unhappily and doubled her pace for the sidelines. Charlie handed her balloons over to her section leader, and Megan thanked her before distributing them out in order to pound the flutes more thoroughly.

"What kin of moron leaves two super-soakers chilling in the middle of the woods?" Blaze asked in amazement as he hefted one to his shoulder. Obviously, a band member had brought them for a specific purpose, but only someone as dumb as a drumline member would forget them in the woods. Charlie knelt down beside him and pulled the other into her arms.

"We should get back to the base," she grinned. "We're going to beat some instrument tail with these!"

For a moment Blaze grinned back at her, and then he suddenly leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the mouth. Surprised, Charlie stared back at him with wide eyes. Then, a little more slowly, he leaned forward once more and kissed her again, deeper this time. Then he drew back and slipped his hand into hers.

"Let's go," he whispered, and they took off for Brasshole territory.


	5. Another War and a Mysterious Flute

Murder in Band Camp X

Chapter Five: Another War and a Mysterious Flute

-

The water war had ground on to its inevitable conclusion. Confronted by a base supplied with a never-ending arsenal of water, the rest of the sections had eventually surrendered or made suicide runs, attempting to bomb the Brasshole base with water enough to make their "deaths" count.

But in the end, the Brassholes had triumphed. A soaking, dripping band resumed the field as the end of break was called and lines of pooling water marked the diagonals in the opening scene.

"All right, kids, set sixteen! This is the last set of the day, and I have to say, I'm immensely proud." Mr. Defton was working up to his characteristic "March Time Speech", and Blaze sat back with an expression of attention on his face while he let his mind wander where it would.

Of course, it wandered straight to Charlie, who sat a short distance from him in the Clarinet arc on the thirty, listening to Mr. Defton drone on about the number of sets learned – "Sixteen in one day! I think that's a record!" – and other, useless stuff.

She was, Blaze thought affectionately, the prettiest girl he'd ever met.

As if drawn by his thoughts, Charlie shifted her gaze and met his eyes. She blushed a little, but smiled and scooted over to get closer to him. Blaze moved, too, and as he drew up next to her, Mr. Defton rambling about dedication, he wrapped an arm around her waist and nestled his chin in her shoulder.

"Your hair smells like vanilla," he whispered in her ear, and she let out a low giggle.

"Thanks," she whispered back.

-

There was very little to do after March Time, Lee thought drowsily. He was sprawled across his bed in the empty baritone cabin, one arm draped over the side and his cast resting on his pillow. His wet clothes were hanging out the cabin window. The baritone cabin was smaller than the trombones – whereas the trombones neared around twenty or twenty-five, the baritones were hard-pressed to hit fifteen. They numbered more around ten, and their "space-saving" cabin showed it.

But Lee was satisfied with his cabin anyway. The 'tones were a closer-knit group than most – nothing like the Brasshole's loyal society, but close nonetheless. They rivaled the drumline in terms of fierce dedication to one's section, and where the drumline was rather thickheaded at times, the baritones were lazy, instead. They still found ample excuse to hang out with one another outside of school or band.

In fact, he'd made more friends by being in band than he had in any of his other school classes combined, Lee mused. He was definitely glad he'd opted for instrumental rather than voice when offered the choice in sixth grade… Lee shuddered at the thought. The choirboys were talented and all, but they were so… delicate.

Damn. It was getting _really_ hot. "What's the deal here?" he yelled into his pillow and Donald mumbled back to him from his own bunk.

"It's Texas, you Nancy." Donald called. "Deal with the heat or move your ass to Maine."

"Oh, spare me the lectures, Kensington." Lee yawned. But the heat was really getting to him and Donald, and coupled with the workout in March Time – not to mention the grilling water war they had just fought – he and his fellow Brasshole drifted to sleep.

-

Dinner passed almost as eventfully as March Time had. The cooks, underestimating the maturity of the Knightsbridge Band, made spaghetti and meatballs. It all smelled very good, Utah was sure of that, but the opportunity to stuff slimy spaghetti down a female froshie – preferably a flute – was too tempting to be ignore.

"Aiiiiieeeee!" The high-pitched shriek cut across the entire pavilion and as one, the band students paused in talking and eating to stare at a crying freshman flutist with red spaghetti stains down the back of her shirt.

"Utah, you ass!" The flute section leader yelled, and chunked a sauce-laden piece of garlic bread straight at his head. The warm sauce splattered across his cinnamon-colored hair and left tiny droplets across his grinning face. Still smiling, he gathered a bunch of the stuff up and streaked it across the top of his cheeks in a ridiculous imitation of war paint.

"Food fight!" somebody screamed. The Pavilion was instantly drowned in a cacophony of screams and shrieks as noncombatants scrambled to the edges for the second time that day.

And in the middle of it all was Utah, back-to-back with Scott, flinging meatballs like projectiles and basking in the chaos.

"Take that!" Scott yelled, flinging a handful of spaghetti sauce at a passing sophomore name Derrick Sanders. The sauce left a red arc across his neck and he glowered at the french horn player.

"Take _that_ yourself, frenchie." He muttered as he grabbed a chair and swept it at Scott's feet, knocking the boy over. Scott's shoulder hit the table with a sickening crack that was heard even over the earnestly yelling crowd, and Derrick quickly stepped out of the Pavilion and stalked along the path to his cabin. The students quieted rapidly.

"You okay?" Utah asked anxiously as Scott lay on the floor, clutching his shoulder in agony. The french horn moaned between clenched teeth and shook his head. Utah could see Scary, Mellie, Blaze, and Charlie all working the way through the crowd in an effort to get by their fellow Brasshole's side.

"Not really," he managed to say. "I think – "

"It's dislocated," Someone interjected, and Lee turned to find the flute Section Leader, Diana Spence, glaring at the injured student. "What did you do to him, anyway? Derrick only retaliates, he never instigates."

"What did _he_ do?" Utah asked, outraged. "Listen, Barbie, that guy was on the battleground. That meant he was an available target and it was perfectly legal to hit him. Derrick just snapped and swung the chair at Scott."

"Don't call me Barbie!" Diana yelled, only getting angrier. She smoothed her pink shirt down only a little self-consciously.

"Besides, Barbie," Utah continued on blithely, "What's it to you? Got a crush on the sophie?"

"No, you moron! He's a flute! It's my responsibility to look after my section!" She huffed. Utah paused in mid-rant.

"He's a flute?" he echoed. His eyes narrowed. "We've got a dude flute?" One hand scratched the side of his head absently. "We've got a dude flute. Well, this is an interesting development…"

"Hello? Injured person on the floor, here! Can I get a little help, Utah-boy?" Scott bellowed from his position on the ground, still clutching his shoulder but managing to look menacing even through his grimace of pain.

"As long as you don't fall unconscious on me, too, bro." Utah grumbled. "Just promise me that."

"I promise! Get me some painkillers, you loser!" Scott continued the yelling and finally Scary and Melody broke through the circle. Scary gathered the injured student up in his arms, muttering softly about déjà vu. Then, trailed by the Brasshole society, they made their way to the infirmary.

-

"This is definitely dislocated," the head of the infirmary, Dr. Reese, pronounced. "In fact, it could even be fractured, as well. About the only thing I can recommend is to lie still and try not to move until we get an ambulance to take you to the hospital."

"I get an ambulance?" Scott asked, only slightly horrified. "But everyone's going to stare at me!"

"No fair!" Utah complained. "Charlie, Lee, and Scott all get ambulances, and what do I get? 'Thanks for the help, Utah, go on back to your cabin.' Sheesh." Utah's grumbling was only half-hearted as he looked worriedly at his normally tan friend, looking pale and drawn against the white bed sheets.

"That's really all I can tell you," Dr. Reese said gently. "We'll let you know first thing in the morning what's going on."

After giving Scott worried get-well wishes and promising to guard his instrument, the group filed out of the tiny infirmary. The darkening sky revealed glittering country-bright stars, glittering like glass without the filter of pollution or even clouds.

"Wonder who'll get hurt next?" Lee said, only half-joking, as he rubbed his cast self-consciously. Next to him, Charlie probed her bandage carefully.

"Don't say that," she sighed. "It's like inviting bad luck."

"Superstition," Mellie scoffed, waving one hand away in the air for emphasis. "It's like knocking on wood, or not swimming and hour after you eat. Besides, we weren't the only ones to get hurt. There was that other girl in the hospital with you two."

The small gathering slowed to a halt as the silence stretched out. The trees stretched along beside them, distinct at the very edge of the trail but blending into complete and utter darkness when you peered past the nearest trunk. Blaze tilted his head back to look at the stars, absently tracing out constellations in his mind. _There's the Big Dipper… and the North Star…_ the midnight blue sky was so calm and peaceful… he could almost her a sad, flute melody drifting through the night air…

"Do you hear that?" Mike hissed, catching a hold of Penny's arm and looking frightened. "Or am I imagining things?"

"No," Penny said softly, "I'm definitely hearing flute music." The flutist, whoever they were, was very good. The tune rose and fell with subtle dynamics and the unusually low notes lent the piece a slow, mournful air.

"That's definitely not anything we're playing," Mellie said slowly. The music reached a diminuendo faded gradually, until the reverberating note seemed to whisper all around them through the trees.

Abruptly, the sound was terminated with a strangled, discordant noise as air was exhaled too fast into the instrument's body, and something fell almost imperceptibly to the forest floor. A high shriek filled the air, laced with utter terror, rebounding again and again off the tree trunks until it, too was cut short with a decided finality.

"Where's the flute cabin?" Merry hissed, and Charlie darted through the circle and raced along the worn, rocky path. Behind her, practically flying down the forest path, the pounding of seven pairs of feet sounded like seven hundred.

Whatever was wrong, she hoped she wasn't too late.

~

Author's Note: Hi and thanks to the reviewers! I feel so loved! I'm terribly sorry about abandoning you all in the middle of it all, but I went away to Colorado for three weeks of Camp Redcloud, a discipleship camp, and it turned out very wonderfully… I managed to snag a great guy up there. If you want the whole story, go to my livejournal account, http://www.livejournal.com/~melody_chan. Anyway, this isn't exactly my best chapter ever, but I get a screwy chapter every once in a while, and it lends some suspense, if I do say so myself. Thanks to all, and I'll have chappy six up sometime soon, I promises. :)

~tchau,

Soul Peach


	6. Of Chair Results and Stolen Flutes

Murder in Band Camp X

Chapter Six: Of Chair Results and Stolen Flutes

~

It was a bit of an anticlimax, after pounding up to the flute cabin in a stampede, to find a rather frightened, but mostly confused, section leader.

"I'm not missing anybody!" Diana bellowed above the numerous, half-shouted questions. "I did a full head count and all my flutes are here!"

"Well, somebody had to have played it! Is anybody missing a flute?" Utah said, throwing his hands up in the air. Again, Diana shook her head emphatically.

"_No_," she insisted, "Every flute – instrument or otherwise – is accounted for."

"We all heard the same thing," Charlie interjected. "Somebody was playing a flute in the woods, and then they screamed. We should at least take a look."

Search parties of three were organized in short order, and soon band students were combing the scraggly but surprisingly dense Texas forest. After thirty minutes, however, nothing had turned up.

"This is ridiculous," Blaze muttered. "It's got to be a prank."

"A prank?" Diana echoed. Then, more angrily, "A _prank_?"

"Well, what else?" Donald cut in. "All the flutes are accounted for, like you said, and the woods are empty. You know how much of a kick any one of the trombones would get out of pulling a stupid stunt like this." He glanced to Scary and Melody for support.

"Well-" they began in unison, and both shrugged. "Yeah, it does kind of make sense," Scary admitted. "We've got some real jerks in our cabin." His hands tightened angrily as he recalled the repeated jibes from a certain Mark Wegner. Even Scary's implied threats weren't getting through the guy's thick skull.

"We can check it out," Lee said. "Scope the sections, see who knows what during breakfast."

"This is beginning to sound like a bad Bobsey Twins book," Charlie commented, eliciting half a snort from Utah and blank stares from the rest of the group. "What, didn't any of you read Bobsey Twins mysteries when you were little?" She asked indignantly.

"Uh, no." Merry said, effectively ending the conversation. "It's getting late. Tomorrow, chair results are being posted and the colorguard are arriving after lunch. Let's get to bed."

Penny immediately stifled a huge yawn. Grabbing a hold of Utah's arm, she nodded and pulled her fellow trumpet off in the direction of the trumpet cabin. Blaze, after hugging Charlie goodbye and giving her a small kiss on the cheek, soon followed. The remainder of the group found their own respective beds as the flutes returned to their shaken-up cabin until the forests were empty but for a warm night breeze.

~

The next day at breakfast wasn't quite the usual mass of joking, teasing students. Even more unusually, the pending chair results hadn't stirred up the morning conversation as it should have. Instead, whispers stalked the band and more than a few wary, uncertain glances were being cast at the more disparaging instrument sections.

"What's the deal?" Lee asked uneasily after receiving a few heated glares as he sat down at the Brasshole table. He was immediately shushed by several nearby flutists, to whom he gave a menacing look. "Seriously. What's going on here?"

"What I've heard so far," Scary said, laying one big hand on the picnic table. "Is that Diana's brand new thousands-of-dollars flute has been stolen."

"But it wasn't missing last night," Blaze said from the end of the table. "It had to have been stolen during the night, while they were all asleep. After we left."

"Oh, boy. Here she comes." Somebody the next table over said above the whispering Pavilion. Dead silence settled in and every head in the room swiveled to meet Diana as she stalked to her table.

"Whoever has my flute," she announced without preamble, "had better give it back soon or they are going to be in a _world_ of hurt." With that she sat down heavily at a flute table, crossing her arms and glaring at anyone who happened to meet her gaze that wasn't a fellow flutist.

Strangely enough, the band directors lining the side of the pavilion did nothing. Mr. Defton shifted feet anxiously and gave a nervous glance to the band director on his left, Mrs. Bartlett. Both of them exchanged meaningful glances, utterly incomprehensible to the students.

"What's the deal?" Lee asked again, shaking his head. "Call me paranoid, but something is _up_."

"You're paranoid," Blaze replied, "but something _is_ up. What on earth is going on with the directors? Normally they'd be all over this as a matter of course. 'Instrumental Injustice' and all that."

Scary snorted derisively. "I know what you mean. But did anybody find out who pranked last night?"

Around the table, heads shook in dissent.

"Well, this is more fun than a barrel of freaking rabid monkeys!" Mike exploded, startling several tables around them. "Everybody is tiptoeing around like there's Bigfoot in the Hill Country, and he's thieving flutes! Come on, it's obviously a prank. Someone here is ganking things and trying to weird us all out and it's working. Get over it!"

"You don't even know!" one flutist began in a hostile tone, but Diana grabbed her arm and shushed her.

"Mike's right," she said. "I'm still gonna murder whoever has my flute, but none of us are acting normally."

"Here's you're first incentive," Mr. Defton interjected. "I assure you, whoever has Diana's flute will come by severe repercussions, but until then, I'd like to announce that chair results are posted." Ever pair of eyes in the Pavilion suddenly shifted to the far wall, where several unassuming sheets of paper, laden with names, hung innocently.

"RESULTS!" Utah bellowed, and vaulted out of his chair. As one mass move, the student body leapt up and stampeded for the wall.

"First chair! Yes!" Charlie yelled, turning around and grabbing Blaze in and ecstatic hug.

"Looks like we're two of a kind," he grinned as he found his name at the top of the trumpet list. "We'll have a duet!"

"Oh, look." Scary drawled to their right. "I made first chair bass trombone. What a surprise!" Scary was the only bass trombone Knightsbridge had that year. Penny and Utah scanned the trumpet results and found themselves side-by-side at third and fourth chair.

"Third chair! Sweet!" Mellie called from farther behind in the crowd. Right behind her was Mike, jumping up and down impatiently. 

"What about me? What about me?" he called, narrowly avoiding stomping one girl's foot. Utah glanced quickly at the sheets, and his eyes widened as he found the trombone player's name

"DUDE! Mike! You made last chair Wind Ensemble!" Utah bellowed, causing a junior clarinetist beside him to wince in pain as his shout resonated in her ear. "Sorry, girl." He offered good-naturedly, then pushed his way outside the band mob to where his fellow Brassholes had congregated on a picnic table.

"To us!" Lee yelled, raising a juice box he had stolen from the kitchen a few minutes before. "The Brassholes!" he gulped down half the box before sputtering and coughing. Blaze laughed and smacked him on the back.

"We all made WE – every one of us." Scary announced. "That means wreaking havoc on Mr. Defton's sanity!" Lee raised his juice box up in response.

"Hear, hear!" he gasped, still wheezing, and then nearly toppled over onto the floor as Merry smacked him on the back.

"Choking on a juice box," she muttered, grinning anyway. "Where's my juice box, huh?" Lee coughed once and reached behind him, pulling another juice box off the table and handing it to her with exaggerated care. Merry raised a hand in a threatening gesture and Lee immediately tried to block, but only succeeded in losing his balance and sprawling out on the floor.

"Rehearsal in thirty minutes!" Mrs. Bartlett shouted over the din of the Pavilion. In response, the mass of students shifted and began herding themselves towards their respective cabins and instruments. Lee picked himself up off the floor and staggered towards the path that led back to Baritone country.

"To arms!" he shouted, waving the juice box around in a threatening manner and receiving several strange looks from a few froshie saxophones. He was caught up in the swarm, however, hidden from sight except for the waving juice box, and eventually that too was lost as the Brassholes left to fetch their pride and joy from beneath beds and beside suitcases.

It was music time, and damned if they weren't band nerds.

~

Author's Note:

Sorry this has taken so long! My creative juices just dried up with the dawning of different ideas, and I have vowed to finish this story before I begin posting anything else multi-chapter, so this will be continued! I have the plot worked out for a another few chapters and the ending clear in my head, so hopefully this will result in some better (more often!) posting and some twists and turns through-out the story. Enjoy and thanks for the reviews!

~adulaith~


	7. Colorguard and Clarinets

Murder in Band Camp X

Chapter Seven: Color Guard and Clarinets

~

Morning rehearsal passed without a hitch, and Lunch on the pavilion had gone by almost as peacefully. The day was continuing as uneventfully as any other, so Charlie was surprised to find a complement of about twenty girls already on the practice field before March Time, bedecked in spandex and sports bras as they traipsed across the cement with rifles, sabres, and flags. The male band members were already starting to gawk.

"Guard's here." Utah commented, eyes locked on the captain, Elizabeth Johnson.

"Observant," Charlie muttered darkly. She slipped her hand into Blaze's grasp and tugged firmly. "Also immature."

"Of course," Blaze agreed immediately. Scary began nodding in agreement after an inspecting glance from Mellie. Similarly, all over the practice field female band members were distracting boyfriends and hopeful prospects from the hard working colorguard.

"They're like a plague," Penny muttered darkly as she glowered at one dark-haired saxophone, who was preoccupied with gaping. "I'm sure they're very nice people, but they wreak havoc!"

"TO YOUR PLACES!" Mr. Defton bellowed before the conversation could continue further, and the colorguard retreated to the back of the field as the Knightsbridge Band assumed Set 1 and settled in for another classic Defton speech. "Important news today, folks!" The middle-aged director announced. "We've got NEW UNIFORMS!"

A moment of stunned silence ensued.

Then the field erupted into wild, insane cheering – students began standing up and dancing, some screamed at the top of their lungs – unchecked enthusiasm rampaged for a good five minutes,

"In addition," he added once the cheering had died down, "We are no longer wearing shakos."

Murmuring spread like wildfire. No familiar half-dead feather thing to shed white shreds of plastic stuff during half-time shows? No unsightly white hatbox to tote around the track?

"In the spirit of Texas," Defton continued, pulling something plastic and white from a brown cardboard box, "We are issuing cowboy hats!" Wild laughter broke out. The cowboy hat was an instant classic – nobody miles around had hats like that!

Mr. Defton proceeded to explain that the uniforms would be slightly different – instead of maroon bibbers with gold and white piping, the bibbers would be white with maroon piping. The jacket would remain the same. White dinkles and the new white cowboy hats would finish the ensemble. Contest uniform would entail a different white jacket with maroon and hold detail.

"Wow," Blaze murmured half in awe. "They're going all out this year."

"Well, they haven't gotten new uniforms in about fifteen years." Utah replied from two spaces down the trumpet diagonal. "We were due."

"True," agreed Penny, who stood right beside him. "But who cares? We get brand new uniforms – nobody else has ever worn them before!"

"Totally!" Julie Brazil, the second chair trumpet (but much too social – and normal – to opt for Brasshole status) nodded enthusiastically. "Unworn uniforms are a marcher's fondest dream!"

"They go to the cleaners every year!" Blaze said, but Julie and Penny shrugged him off.

"Up to fifteen other people have worn that uniform before some of use even stuck out leg in it," Julie countered disdainfully. "I happen to think that's kind of gross."

"Grow up!" Utah exclaimed. "It's not like they're carrying anthrax or something!"

Julie sniffed. "Whatever," she declared. Then Defton called Parade Rest and the conversation was abruptly terminated as instruments snapped to their sides, each student's left hand clenched into a fist at the small of their back.

"Band, Atten HUT!" Yelled the head drum major, Jeff Carmicheal, who also played the French horn.

"HUT!" The band resonated back, instant silence following the reverberating shout. Instruments were held straight up and down, eyes stared straight ahead, shoulders were back, spines were straight, feet together, and Jeff motioned to one of his assistant drum majors at the back of the field, clarinetist Rachel Brown. She turned on the Long Ranger and the metronome filled the field with a steady pulse.

Jeff conducted the first four beats, followed in rhythm by his other assistant, Jonah Gretelson, and dark-haired saxophone who had incidentally caught Penny's eye. "Five, six!" The students yelled, and on the upbeat of eight, they shouted, "Te-ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE, SIX, SEV, EIGHT!" and the Knightsbridge band commenced counting out the first quarter of their halftime show.

Today they were joined by the colorguard, and the graceful, flag-spinning females cavorted about the field while executing perfect speed spins, windmills, and picture-perfect tosses.

Up in the band tower, Mr. Defton slowly lowered his headset but forgot to turn it off. "Wow," he said softly, but his voice echoed over the field of determined young musicians. "If this continued, nothing can stand in our way."

As soon as the last set was reached and the band paused for eight beats to let Mr. Defton study their form, the aforementioned musicians burst into wild applause.

"Watch out, District – Region – STATE!" bellowed Lee. "Here come the Knightsbridge Marching Maroons!"

~

Charlie collapsed on her bed with an exhausted grunt. They had spent five hours out there on that field. Five! From three o'clock on, taking ten-minute water breaks every hour, they had pounded across the green cement, learning and setting and resetting until the first thirty-eight sets were branded firmly into their brains. At the very end, they had condensed into the field rehearsal arc and attempted to play through the opener.

The clarinetist grinned ruefully at the ceiling as she recalled how well that had worked out. The trumpets had been marched to the point of no return, their lips spend within the first minute of playing because they simply couldn't summon the energy to maintain their embouchure.

The low brass – particularly the sousaphones – didn't even have the air to force through their horns, and after the first few, strangled discordant notes, Defton had dismissed them for dinner. Amazingly – well, less amazingly considering the grueling March Time they had just endured – the meal was eaten in almost totally silence before students wandered in a tired stupor back to their cabins and welcoming bunk beds.

Which is where Charlie was, too tired even to change into her pajamas. _It's only eight-thirty,_ she thought drowsily before she slipped into slumber.

~

"Charlie!" somebody was hissing. "Charlie, wake up!"

"Wha?" Charlie asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes and groaning as she realized she had fallen asleep with her contacts still in. "Hold up a sec." Her companion – whoever it was kneeling beside her bunk, Charlie couldn't tell in the near-dark and blurry situation of her contacts – waited impatiently, nearly bouncing up and down on her knees as Charlie removed her contacts and settled a pair of old-fashioned tortoiseshell glasses on her nose. "All right, what is it?"

"There's someone outside our cabin," her friend hissed. Charlie recognized the voice as belonging to Megan and her eyes were beginning to acclimate to the darkness, giving Charlie a vague impression of Megan's face.

"What?" Charlie asked loudly, then grimaced as what sounded like the entire cabin shushed her.

"There's a silhouette not too far away from the cabin," Megan whispered nervously. "We can't tell, but we think it's a guy."

"How long has he been there?" Charlie asked, about to swing her legs off of the bunk and stand up. Megan quickly pushed her shoulders back down onto the bed.

"Don't get up!" Megan hissed, glancing apprehensively at the shadow figure standing off in the woods. "He might see." The section leader hesitated for a second, then asked, "Can I get in the bed? My knees hurt."

"Uh… yeah…" Charlie said, moving over so Megan could fit.

"So what are we gonna do?" A voice asked softly from a few bunks away. Charlie identified the voice as belonging to a junior named April DeLeon. "He's just standing there!"

"No he's not!" a panicked male voice broke in. There were only two male clarinetists, so it was either Ricky Moreno or Dave Kisling – and Ricky, a freshman, was more likely to panic as the shadow man picked something long and thin off the ground, flaring slightly outward at the very bottom.

"It's a gun!" somebody half-sobbed and muffled thumps were suddenly heard as the students against the screen wall nearest to the mysterious silhouette tumbled off their beds and hid.

"No – it's a clarinet!" somebody else whispered, and the cabin paused.

A sweet clarinet melody filled the air, laden with dancing triplets, sweet trills, and cascades of eighth and sixteenth notes.

"Wow," Charlie breathed. The shadow began to move as it played, slipping in and out of darkness but still keeping the same distance from the cabin. It slipped behind a small clump of black trees and held a long fermata, singing earnestly above the forest. Every single clarinetist in the cabin held their breath.

Then the reed shrieked in protest as the musician blew much too hard through the mouthpiece, the sound wailing through the dark with such abruptness that the entire section jumped as one.

Then came the scream – high, intense, and laced with utter terror. As the eerie cry echoed through the trees the clarinet cabin immediately leapt into frenzied action.

"It's like what happened yesterday!" a bodiless voice yelled. Someone else was voicing their panic through curses and yet another called out to turn on the lights.

Finally, the light switch was hit and the group of woodwinds stared at each other with total, disheveled shock.

Then, being primarily female and all clarinetists, they launched into gossip. "Omigod!" one girl yelled from her top bunk. "I totally thought we were going to die, or something!"

"I know, right?" a group of other girls chorused, using the most overused phrase in human history.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Megan tried to say, but the teenaged musicians were preoccupied with chattering away about how terrified they were and how scary it had been.

"They're almost as bad as the flutes," Dave mentioned as he walked over to where Charlie was sitting on her bunk bed. Charlie nodded fervently. As she tried to tune out the sound of high-pitched giggling and loud-voiced gossiping, she could hear the sound of footsteps crunching twigs and leaves and dislodging gravel as they ran towards the cabin. The noise was faint, but somebody noticed it and glimpsed a figure heading towards the door.

"Someone's coming!" a freshman shrieked in absolute horror, and the cabin disintegrated into a flurry of wailing, screaming girls trying to hide behind suitcases of dive under their covers.

"Is everyone all right?" a bewildered male voice asked as they paused right outside the door, confused by the mad shrieking. "Oh my God, is someone hurt?!"

"NO!" a girl yelled, and the person paused. "GO AWAY!"

"OH! Oh, good Lord, someone's naked! Oh, shit, I'm sorry, dammit, I'm gonna leave now…"

It was at that point Charlie that recognized Blaze's voice, full of acute embarrassment, and she burst out laughing at how red she knew Blaze must have been turning. "No, Blaze, no-one's naked!" she called, darting for the screen door. "You just scared us – well, them – half to death."

"It's Blaze?" April asked, and the cabin heaved a sigh of relief. "We thought you were the crazy dude playing the clarinet!"

"I heard that, that's why I cam over." Blaze explained, stepping cautiously into the cabin and slipping an arm around Charlie's waist. "It was the same as the flute."

"I know, right?" the same group of girls said again, and Charlie hid a grimace. Whoever started that ridiculous phrase needed a kick to the shins for every time somebody used it.

Other people were heard making their way to the Clarinet cabin. Soon Mr. Defton arrived and inspected the now-hyper woodwind section in discomfort.

"Well, everything seems to be in order," he pronounced awkwardly after a head- and instrument-count. "I think we should all return to out respective beds and go to sleep."

"That's it?" Ricky squawked. "What about the guy in the forest?"

"Nothing happened to the flutes, did it?" Defton replied. "You'll be fine." Charlie suffered an awful thought – she was first chair now, officially a section leader, and her clarinet was in danger. "That's all," Defton pronounced firmly, then left the cabin in a hurry, leaving behind a distinctly uneasy feeling.

"Well, of all the oddest…" Penny muttered from behind Blaze, whom she and Utah had arrived just minutes after. Utah nodded in agreement, but there was nothing they could do. The small group of investigators began to dissolve, and Charlie followed Blaze outside for a minute.

"I'm worried," she said, wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning her head against his chest. "I think my clarinet might bet stolen."

"I'll bring it to my cabin," Blaze said. "That'll throw whoever it is off track."

"You're the best!" Charlie said happily, leaning back and giving the trumpet a brilliant smile.

"It's in the genes," he said, and kissed her.

Five minutes later, he was on his way back to his cabin, a loopy grin on his face and a $2000 wooden Buffet clarinet named James the Second clutched in his hand.

Consequently, he missed the dark figured that silently prowled the forest behind him, following the teenager back to his bed.

~

A/N: Wow! Brilliance! I wrote this entire chapter in a notebook and it came to almost six pages, front and back! Cool! 

Note: The author had to guess at the appearance of shakos and hatboxes from what she has seen from other bands, for the author has worn nifty-spiff cowboy hats for the entirety of her marching band career. So if there are any glaring mistakes, blame the author, not me.

Also, the author cannot remember how to spell Buffet the clarinet name brand correctly, for sadly, she owns only a Normandy. However, the author's clarinet does happen to be named James the Second, for those of you who are even still reading this.

Well, that's it. As always, review, review, pleeaaasssee! I'll send you pocky!

~adulaith


	8. A Bit More Interesting

Murder in Band Camp X

-

Chapter Eight: A Bit More Interesting

-

Morning came all too soon for the exhausted members of Knightsbridge Maroon Band. The invasive call of morning reveille, played by none other than the trumpet specialist Mr. Burton, made its way past pillows, blankets, and hand-clamped ears.

"Nooo," somebody muttered aloud, slightly drowned out by the brass melody, but Mellie could hear it anyway, and she forced herself to sit up in her bed. Her hair was in disarray and she blinked wide, brown eyes sleepily.

"Morning, gorgeous," Scary grinned at her. The tall bass trombonist was already dressed and ready, bedecked in clean khakis and a nicely tailored plaid shirt.

"Dude, Scary, where's the funeral?" Peter Shields yawned as he woke up. The fourth chair trombonist promptly fell out of his bed and landed with a sharp yelp on the floor, prompting a giggle from Melody and a loud bark of laughter from the band director standing in the doorway.

"There's a band director standing in the doorway!" somebody else shouted in surprise. Mr. Petri, the new low brass specialist, grinned slyly from behind his large glasses.

"Time to get up," he mentioned. He was a relatively small man, with a thin build and even thinner hair. The glasses gave him a perpetual owlish look. "We have breakfast in ten minutes and rehearsal in forty." With that said, he waved a snappy goodbye and left the cabin whistling his favorite stand tune, Aztec Fire.

"He is a very weird man!" Peter yelled from his position on the floor.

"Shut your face, Shields!" a nameless lump in a top bunk shouted back in friendly reply.

"Eat shit and die, Trooper!" Shields yelled back, and the shouting and noise escalated as the cabin woke up.

"As I was saying," Scary said. "Morning, gorgeous." He grabbed her hand and placed a kiss on the top of it, then gave a wink and disappeared out the cabin door, ostensibly heading for the Pavilion, and leaving a slightly bewildered but not unhappy Mellie Waters behind.

-

"Shit," Blaze muttered, the oath heartfelt and not totally without reason. Then, louder, "Shiiiiiiiit."

"Wha's the deal?" Utah yawned as he staggered over to Blaze's bunk, drawn by the abject swearing. "You usually don't get this vocal in the mornings, man."

"You're never up early enough to hear me, anyway," Blaze joked tersely, not wanting to blow Utah off, but still becoming more and more anxious and his thorough search of the cabin proved to be empty of clarinets. "Charlie is gonna kill me."

"Hm?" Utah asked, even more confused. "What'd you do now?"

"She gave me her clarinet to keep, just to make sure nobody would steal it last night – you know, the whole deal with the flute. And it's gone – I can't find it any damn where!"

"Chill, man!" Utah said, alarmed, as Blaze's voice escalated beyond anxiety and hit panic. "It's gotta be here somewhere – what'd you do with it when you got here?"

"I stuck it behind my bag," Blaze said, dropping rather suddenly to the floor and sticking his head under his bunk. A short expanse of dusty wood with scattered bits of leave and sticks met his eyes, accompanied by a large green gym bag and his own trumpet case. "But it's not here – and there's tracks where somebody dragged it out from under my bed." He rolled over and didn't make any effort to get up, staring unhappily at Utah.

"Dude," Utah said succinctly. "That sucks."

"ARGH!" Blaze bellowed, startling some still sleeping freshman and pounding his fists on the floor in an effort to vent. "WHAT'S THE DEAL?!"

"What is the deal?" another voice asked, and Blaze found Alex Garcia by Utah's side, followed shortly by Penny.

"I've lost Charlie's clarinet," he said flatly, and the two newcomers sucked in simultaneous breaths.

"Dude," Alex remarked. Penny nodded in agreement.

"Dude," she echoed, and Blaze had to laugh, even through his miserable state. The trumpet section was way too fond of the word 'dude'.

"Dude," Blaze said, shaking his head and closing his eyes briefly. "Help me up." Three hands were offered and Blaze grabbed all of them, forcing the trumpets – _his_ trumpets, he wasn't section leader for nothing – to haul him to his feet. "Let's go to breakfast."

-

"Don't play on your horn, moron!" Merry snapped as a saxophone let out a loud, blaring note right beside her ear. "Don't you woodwinds know anything?"

"Swab your horn right now!" Charlie scolded the sax. "You just ate breakfast three minutes ago! You'll get spit and sugar in the cork and it'll rot!"

The sax looked a little green as he contemplated rotting cork on his shiny instrument. "Sorry," he muttered, hastily retreating to the back of the rehearsal room to swab his saxophone as thoroughly as possible.

"Freshmen!" Charlie said exasperatedly. "If I find one more clarinet chewing gum while playing their instrument, I'm gonna take their horn and crack it over their heads!" She frowned at a nearby flutist, who hastily averted her gaze and busied herself with music. "Where on earth is Blaze?!"

"He wasn't at breakfast this morning," Merry commented. "That's kinda strange – Blaze has a black hole for a stomach. He can't go without eating."

"Tell me about it," Charlie grinned, remembering past lunches and dinners where Blaze had inhaled nearly everything in sight. Then, she caught a glimpse of him coming in the band hall double doors, and frowned at the tense look on his face. "Something's wrong," she said aloud. Then her glance fell to his hands – a trumpet case in one, the other empty. "He's either forgotten James, or something is really wrong…"

"Hey, babe." Blaze said as Charlie made her way through the maze of chairs and stands to wrap her arms around his neck in a fierce hug. "We've got a problem."

"That's why you don't have my clarinet, isn't it?" Charlie asked, and Blaze grimaced.

"I'm so sorry, Char," he said desperately. "I even stuck it under my bed behind my bad and my own trumpet. I didn't hear anybody come in during the night – I just woke up, and – I'm so sorry," he finished kind of lamely, shrugging in despair. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Don't think about it," Charlie scolded him. "Somebody wanted my James and they obviously knew you had it. It's not your fault at all – it just means somebody was determined enough, and close enough, to see me give you the clarinet and follow you to your cabin." She repressed a shudder. "Somebody must have been _real_ close."

"I'm totally sorry, babe," Blaze said once more, and wrapped his arms tightly around her waist. He hugged her close, just breathing in the faint scent of vanilla and Lucky brand perfume until the moment was cut short by a loud whistle.

"Get a room, Durham!" one of the percussionists, Bass Drum number two named Delilah Merchant, yelled across the band hall, Prompted by the call, many of the students turned and looked, and Charlie rolled her eyes.

"They're all jealous," she said firmly, and pressed a quick kiss to his lips before disentangling herself from his arms. "I've gotta find a replacement clarinet for James and file a theft report with Defton. I'll se you in a bit." She disappeared into the band office, running her fingers through her short brown hair in a gesture Blaze knew showed how frustrated she was.

"I hope the trumpets aren't next," he muttered softly to himself, plucking the gleaming silver horn from its case and fingering the smoothly responsive valves with care. The thing was nearly as expensive as his pos car at home, and a lot more valuable to him as an item, as well. "I'm locking this up after we're done."

-

Charlie entered the band office quietly – she never knew when the directors were having a meeting, and sometimes they liked to snap when you let a door slam shut. She was just about to let the door fall gently back into place when Lee's second chair baritone, Donald, pushed through.

"Hey," he grinned at her, speaking in a low voice – they all knew procedure by now. "Heard about the clarinet – uncool beans, ya know?"

"I know," Charlie smiled. "Definitely uncool. What're you looking for?"

"Valve oil," Donald frowned. "Stupid valves dry up like it's the Sahara. You'd think they'd keep a little bit of oil on them, but the most they can last is like a week. Westhouse despised me in junior high – I think he arranged for me to get the worst euphonium in the entire band."

During the entire conversation they had been wandering past the front desk, and came to the door that led to the library. It was furnished with pictures of the band in various states of giggling insanity and silliness – there were even a few pictures of Blaze Charlie noticed, ones that had to be from his freshman year because he looked too sweet and innocent for his senior year.

"Wonder why they always have these pictures," Charlie commented. "It's only a camp band hall. Don't other people use this place?"

"Nah," Donald shrugged. "Westhouse was such a rich old fart that he bought the entire property and furnished it with everything we have today. Even though he retired it's officially the music department's property, and he can't take it back. So it stays unused for most of the year – except, of course, for the annual band lock-in." A wide, very anticipatory grin spread across his face. "I've heard so many things about the lock-in, and I finally get to go. That thing is the stuff of _legends,_ man."

"Hmm," Charlie said thoughtfully. "Stuff of legends…" She placed one hand on the doorknob and was about to push through to the small room lined with filing cabinets and one big copier machine, but Donald suddenly grabbed her wrist and hissed at her to be quiet.

"They're talking about the flutes," he said softly. Charlie tuned out all her thoughts and focused on the muffled words that drifted past the barely cracked door.

" …unacceptable! We can't just let him rampage around camp like a madman!" Defton was saying vehemently, one fist pounding the table for emphasis. "He's ruining band morale and freaking out the kids!"

"We don't even know it's him," Petri countered in a quiet voice. "We've been out of touch with all of Texas for the past few days – for all we know, some psychopath could have broken loose from prison and _he's_ the one terrorizing our students."

"Unlikely," Mrs. Bartlett interjected. "What kind of chance does that have? Think seriously here, people. Obviously, retirement hasn't settled him down any – I think he's hellbent for revenge."

"But why this guerilla warfare-type revenge?" Another band director, the french horn specialist Mr. Cronshey, added his own input. "This is very… commando-type pseudo-military infiltration."

"Not infiltration," Defton said. "He's got a master key. All he has to do is walk up to that door and open it up." As he spoke, he gestured towards the door Charlie had one hand on. They made eye contact, and Charlie muttered an oath under her breath.

"What do you think you're doing?" Bartlett exploded. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Not long – we – I just needed some valve oil – her clarinet – " Donald stammered as Charlie pulled the door open.

"Oh, no. You're clarinet is gone too," Defton sighed. "I should have expected this." His back, normally perfectly straight in his chair from years of practice, slumped and he laid both hands on the table, palms down. "This is beginning to get out of hand."

"I think we need to delegate this to someone more qualified," Petri spoke up again in his soft voice, thick with a southern Texas accent. Defton nodded in slow agreement.

"Go tell the band rehearsal starts in fifteen," The head director instructed the students. "We'll take care of the valve oil and theft report later. I've got some phone calls to make."

With that, the office quickly emptied, leaving two bewildered students look at each other in amazement.

Things had suddenly gotten a lot more interesting.

-

A/N: Oh yeah! New chapter! So sorry for taking a while (hope you enjoyed this one, Laurie!) but suddenly, I just started to write and couldn't stop! This won't be a long note – it's kind of late, YAWN! – but there ya go and tell me what ya think. Tchau for now,

~adulaith


	9. A Heated Chase

Murder in Band Camp X

-

Chapter Nine: A Heated Chase

-

Three days had done nothing to alleviate the band directors' tension. Fortunately, the woods had been quiet during the nighttime and nothing had happened – but the band had taken to adding 'yet' to the ends of all their sentences.

Routine had been kept, regardless of rampaging strangers and instrument theft. The temporary lull – for everyone knew it could only be temporary – set the students a little bit more relaxed. Of course, they were all teenagers, and band members no less – they dealt with the drama by becoming more hyper, more insane, and more dedicated.

"I can't stand my section," Charlie muttered as she settled down in the student lounge. Much to her surprise, the camp was furnished with something very like a recreation room, equipped with coke and snack machines, couches, and one very big beanbag chair. She took a quick glance around the room to make sure none of her clarinets were there, and let out a big, dramatic sigh.

"What's the deal?" Miguel 'Chico' Cisneros asked. He was a big guy, just a little short, which made the nickname slightly inaccurate. It seemed to fit the snare drummer perfectly, however, and anybody who knew him knew him as Chico.

"Umm, lets see – the clarinets can't form arcs, can't form diags, can't mark time, can't space properly, and oh yes – let's not forget they can't play." Charlie shook her head and threw up her hands in exasperation. "I'm the only one that can play at 31, and _none_ of them can hold phrases."

Chico let out a laugh. "Don't sweat it, Char. The clarinets never represent. You're an anomaly to the Knightsville band – a clarinetist who can play and march at the same time, and do it well!"

"That's why you're getting the solo," Second-chair saxophone Christine DuQuesne interjected from her spot on the couch. Her boyfriend, a trombone player named Zach Mueller in Symphonic One, nodded empathetically beside her.

"I'm getting a solo?" Charlie squawked. "When did this happen?"

Christine looked immediately abashed. "Uh oh," she said. "I guess I wasn't supposed to say that." Christine was the band librarian and provided music for every single member of the band, and as an officer often overheard information she might not have been supposed to hear.

"Good job, babe." Zach said affectionately. "Leaking confidential information all over the place."

Charlie threw a pillow at him. "What solo?" she demanded. "I don't do solos. Not during marching season, not during concert season – Solo and Ensemble competition, maybe, but other than that – nada."

"Well, the directors are planning to ask you to do one," Christine said, running slim fingers through her short, curly red hair. Her pale skin, a profusion of freckles, and bright green eyes were a contrast to Zach's dark hair, brooding gaze, and deep-toned skin – but they seemed to fit each other perfectly. "Apparently, they're all excited to have a talented clarinetist such as yourself gracing the presence of our lowly Maroon Band." She wrinkled her nose playfully. "Personally, I'm getting tired of it."

Charlie searched around for another pillow, but didn't find one close enough to her beanbag chair to throw, so she settled for making a face at the sax player instead.

"Here," Zach said helpfully, smushing a pillow in Christine's face and winking at Charlie. "I think she deserved it."

"Ack!" Christine said from behind the pillow, her arms flailing.

"This doesn't seem like acceptable conduct!" a booming voice said in the doorway. The little group paused and Christine peeked out from behind the pillow to find Lee standing in the room, hands on his hips and doing his best 'I'm-Mr.-Defton-and-I'm-MAD!' impression.

"The resemblance is uncanny," Chico said, shaking his head. As Lee found a spot on one of the other couches, the room began to fill up with an assortment of loud band nerds. The noise level quickly escalated to that of a dull roar and Charlie grinned happily as Blaze wandered in.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked, settling down into the big chair and making himself comfortable.

"Do I have much of a choice?" she asked. Blaze grinned and shook his head.

"Of course not," he said, placing a kiss on her forehead and wrapping one arm around her waist.

"PDA!" somebody yelled – Delilah again – and the room burst into clapping and good-natured jeering. Charlie was continually amazed by the atmosphere she found in this place. From the moment she had arrived she had been welcomed with open arms and cheerful jokes. The attitude was astonishing, and the things they accomplished – !

She snuggled a little further into Blaze's embrace and contemplated how perfectly she fit in here. Even her missing clarinet and the mysterious silence of the band directors couldn't shake the warm feeling she had in the pit of her stomach.

Things were straightening out.

-

The entire band knew there was an upstairs to the rehearsal hall, but the band directors told everyone it was empty and unused – and off-limits. True, it was empty, and off-limits, but it was far from unused.

Years ago, the fire exit had worked, and the alarm hadn't been old and broken. Now, though, the door was forgotten and the upstairs filled with nothing but old drums and harnesses, broken flagpoles, and discarded sousaphone cases. A thin layer of dust coated everything in sight. Except, of course, a small alcove nestled in between a pile of discarded flag material and the remnants of a broken xylophone: it was there that a large pile of sheets, accompanied by several pillows, formed a small bed that was obviously in frequent use.

A shadow crossed the dusty sunlit floor and fell on two instruments, casting the relatively small clarinet and flute cases into temporary shade. A short, rotund middle-aged man made his way carefully across the floor to where another pile of instrument cases stood.

The one he picked had a very distinct shape, and could only belong to one instrument.

-

"GOOD NIGHT!" Defton bellowed across the campgrounds, his shout echoing past the trees and into cabins. "TURN YOUR LIGHTS OUT AND GET TO SLEEP!"

"Yes, Herr Defton!" somebody from the tuba cabin called, and Merry's voice could easily be heard afterwards with a resounding "Shut up and get to sleep, asshat!"

Lights dimmed and the glow of the cabins soon fell into darkness, and except for an occasional blink of a flashlight under a sleeping bag, the forest was dark. Muffled giggles emanated from the flute cabin but soon those, too died out.

The trombone cabin door usually creaked, but during evening rehearsal had been sprinkled with just a little valve oil so that the screen opened soundlessly and a dark shadow stole inside. One case in particular he sought, and with absolute silence he lifted it from its position on the floor and tread noiselessly outside. The case he deposited by the door to the second floor of the band hall, and he returned to the forest and raised the brass instrument slowly to his lips.

Mellie nearly fell out of bed as the deep tone of a trombone – perfectly familiar after all these years – traveled through the trees and vibrated with incredible volume to leave her ears ringing and nearly senseless. And even more, the sound was _perfect_ – no trombone in Knightsbridge could make that loud and big a sound and still stay perfectly in tune.

"Trombone thief!" she yelled, swinging her legs out of bed and slipping them hastily into her sneakers. Beside her, Scary was trying to get the sleep out of his eyes.

"Where do you thing you're going?" he asked, looking askance as she quickly laced her shoes. The trombone dropped lower in pitch and vibrato filled her ears. One bunk over, Mike sat up groggily and cursed under his breath as he took in Mellie and Scary and the music drifting through the cabin.

"I'm gonna find the guy who's doing this crap," she muttered. "Nothing's gonna happen if everyone just sits around and acts scared."

__

I knew she was fiery, but damn! Scary thought in amazement. Then it sunk in. "You can't go out looking for him!" he objected, grabbing he wrist. "Are you crazy?"

"Just slightly!" she said, twisting out of Scary's hold. The burly bass trombonist tried to grab her shoulders, but he could never get physical with a woman – even if it was to keep her from chasing after a lunatic. About the only thing he could do was shove his own feet into a pair of Nikes. He glanced at Mike, both of them exchanging "what the hell are we supposed to do?" looks, and followed closely behind her as she bolted out the cabin door.

"Oh, hell," Mike groaned, slipped a pair of sandals on, and dashed out the screen door. The rest of the cabin looked at each other in amazement.

"What the hell are we doing just sitting here?" Chris said. "The 'bones don't just sit when the shit hits the fan." He got up and ran for the door, and the entire trombone section followed behind him, yelling and screaming.

-

"What the?" Mr. Defton was woken by the sounds of a trombone, intermingled with the cries of what had to be an entire brass section. "Oh, great Scott, not again…" he moaned to himself as he jumped out of bed, slipping on a pair of shoes and donning his glasses. As he slipped out of his one-man cabin and into the warm Texas night he could definitely pick out the words "GET ROWDY!" rising above the general din. "Damn trombones!" he yelled to the trees, and took off at a dead run towards the noise.

-

Mellie was running full tilt through the forest towards where she had heard the trombone play last. True to his former practice, the instrument thief had cut off abruptly and let loose a wild, chilling scream – but it had only allowed the freshman trombonist to get a better lock on where he was.

"We're getting' rowdy!" somebody behind her yelled enthusiastically, and she shook her head with a rueful grin. Then she broke into a wide smile as it was followed by "GET IT, MELODY! GET ROWDY!"

"Crazy psychos," she muttered. She leapt over a fallen branch and skirted the edges of a burly mesquite tree, then suddenly remember exactly what kind of forest she was running through. "Watch the cactus!" she bellowed, only just in time to hear a high-pitched shriek cut through the night.

"Holy shit!" somebody else yelled. "Fuckin' cactus!"

Mellie gritted her teeth and kept on running.

-

"What happened here?" Mr. Defton yelled as he approached the huddle of band students. They were circled around one person in particular, who sat on the ground and was clutching his left leg.

"Shit, shit, shit!" The trombone in the middle complained. "Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!"

"What's going on?" Mr. Defton demanded, skidding to a halt. The section leader, Chris, looked up from his position beside the injured trombone and shook his head.

"Troy ran smack into a cactus," he said with a grimace. "He's got some big thorns in pretty deep."

"Let me see him," Defton said brusquely, shouldering his way through the trombones and kneeling beside Troy Washburn. He pushed the sophomore's hands away form the injured leg and surveyed the damage. A large number of cactus needles protruded from his right leg, and there were numerous red dots on his legs and holes in his boxers where he had already pulled some out.

"He's going to have to go to the hospital, isn't he?" Chris asked quietly. Defton nodded.

"We're not equipped to handle this sort of thing," The band director sighed. "Minor abrasions we can deal with, but when braindead brass run full-speed into Texas cactus, there's very little we can do." He glared at Troy, who made a pain-filled scowl right back at him. "Keep him still until we get a stretcher. Is there anybody else?" he questioned.

Chris shifted his weight nervously. "Melody is chasing after the instrument thief. Scary is chasing her, and Mike is chasing after both of them."

"Damn trombones!" Defton said again. "Chris, go get the camp doctor and a director to call the hospital. Don't move him and he'll be fine." With those words of wisdom, he straightened up and looked at the dark forest in front of him. One hand grabbed a flashlight from the clutches of a sophomore trombone and he took off into the woods, grim-faced and scowling.

"Whoa." Troy remarked amid the moans of pain. "Intense."

"I can't believe you ran into a cactus," somebody else remarked.

"I couldn't see it in the dark!" Troy retorted, and the trombone section lapsed into a heated argument.

Far ahead in the woods, the chase was only getting interesting.


	10. At A Loss For Words

Murder in Band Camp X

-

Chapter 10: At a Loss for Words

-

The only thing filling Melody's ears was her short breath, coming in burst and gasps and she taxed her body to the limit. Whoever it was in front of her, crashing noisily through the forest, was fast for his age and size. He appeared to be about five six, with a stocky build and very little hair. Her eyes were adjusting to the dark night and the moonlight bounced crazily off the instrument thief's bald head.

__

Nooo! Melody groaned in her mind. Her lungs were burning and her leg muscles were about to cramp up. She recognized the sharp tension building in her upper thighs from the periodic running she did to keep herself in shape. And still the man in front of her was keeping speed – he was even gaining distance!

The next few moments came incredibly fast. Seemingly out of nowhere, a tree branch came swooping down from the night sky and raked across her face, leaving long trails of fire where her skin had broken. Melody cried out in pain and instinctively ducked, throwing her arms up in the air as her speed dropped. One foot caught on an underlying root and she hit the ground in an ungraceful heap of sprawled limbs and broken tree branches. Something poked her rather sharply in the side and grated against of rid cage, tearing the fabric of her shirt and surely scratching red welts across her skin.

Her wrist felt very peculiar, too. Her entire right arm had been in the air as she fell, banging painfully against a tree trunk and sliding down the bark. The momentum she had gained running had swept the treebark against her arm and hand like a cheese grater, not to mention the tearing sensation she had experience as her wrist was caught in a low-lying branch and then wrenched free during her fall.

The footsteps of the man she was pursuing faded into the night ahead, and she cursed silently under her breath. "Damn." She said aloud, forcing her weary body to roll over onto her back. Her wrist, now cradled to her stomach, throbbed with a muted sort of icy flame. She discovered her bare knees had been ripped and torn, tiny rivulets of blood sliding slowly, almost teasingly, down her calf, and that there was another little stream traveling down her ribs and soaking through her t-shirt.

Melody blinked sleepily. Somebody was crashing through the forest only seconds behind her, and she thought she recognized Scary's voice calling her name, filled with infinite worry and concern.

"Over here," she thought she tried to call, but she was getting really sleepy. Her forehead was throbbing and she recalled hazily that the branch she had hit head-on had been a rather thick one.

But such matters were secondary, and she slipped in a dark, dreamless sleep.

-

Mr. Defton greeted the early Texas dawn with bleary eyes and unkempt hair, stubble showing rather clearly on his usually meticulously shaven chin. The morning sun seemed to waver hesitantly over the horizon, as if uncertain that it was the right time to appear, shooting watery rays of red, gold, and orange sunlight through the receding darkness.

"This has gone on too far," Mr. Cronshey said, standing just behind and to the side of Defton. "Much too far. Too many kids have gotten hurt."

"Melody won't even be able to play her trombone for several months from that broken wrist." Mr. Petri added. "And Troy can't march for at least three weeks. By that time we'll have learned all our drill."

"Three instruments missing, as well." Mrs. Bartlett sighed. "This is getting expensive. And ridiculous."

"I've made a few calls." Mr. Defton said, and even if his eyes were bloodshot and his clothes wrinkled and unruly, his voice was filled with determination and hardening resolve. "There's a few plainclothes detectives coming out here tomorrow afternoon. I've given them permission to search this camp from top to bottom. If there's anybody hiding in these woods, they'll find him."

"For our students sake, I hope your right." Cronshey said solemnly. "I sure hope you're right."

-

Utah woke slowly, which was rather abnormal for him. Normally he was up and awake immediately, ready to get on and go. This time, however, he felt like something was dragging on his mind, and the foggy haze clouding his thought seemed to cling tenaciously to his brain, sending little tendrils of numbness into the corners of his cranium.

"Bad night," he said to himself. On the bunk above him, Penny rolled over and dropped her pillow on his head.

"Cheer up, Eeyore." She yawned. "I've got lots of honey that'll make even a grouch like you turn sweet."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Utah asked in a baffled voice.

"Go stuff yourself!" Penny said crossly. Utah stared up at her in an even more bewildered sort of way. Alternating between a scowl and a jaw-cracking yawn, Penny rolled back over and burrowed back into her covers.

"Penny always says incoherent things in the morning." Blaze said from behind him. "You, however, are always still asleep, you lazy-ass." The redhead was dressed in a bright green Hurley t-shirt and khaki pants, and Utah looked askance at his choice of colors.

"You look like a leprechaun," he noted. Blaze scowled at him.

"Go stuff yourself!" he echoed, then shuffled off to his bunk to find a less ridiculous looking t-shirt. He ended up pulling on a black shirt with 'ignition' scrawled across the front. The cabin around them began to rouse and slowly, people began asking questions.

"Why are we waking up so later?" somebody yawned. "It's like, almost nine." A lowerclassman Utah didn't recognize nodded in agreement.

"Where was morning Reveille?" They voiced, and the confusion spread a little further.

"Shut up!" yelled Penny, muffled from under her pillow. "Idiot trombone ran into a cactus and the whole section was playing wild-goose chase last night. Enjoy the sleep while you can!"

Blaze looked at Utah, who shrugged. Who knows, he mouthed at the rest of the section, and spun a finger around his forehead to denote total insanity. A few giggles were stifled but most retreated back to their comfy beds to doze off with a few precious extra minutes of sleep.

Minutes later, an announcement echoed over the camp. "_All section leaders and band officers will report to the Pavilion for a meeting in approximately fifteen minutes. The rest of you are advised to sleep while you can._"

"Take his advice," Blaze shrugged. "I'll be back in a few."

-

"How odd." Charlie said, slipping her feet into a pair of cheap rubber flip-flops and sticking bobby pins in her hair in an attempt to tame the unruly mess before she could shower. "I'll see you guys in a little while." She glanced at the utterly silent cabin, filled with shapeless lumps huddled beneath sleeping bags. "Don't miss me too much," she grinned.

-

Similarly, section leaders and officers across camp stood and looked at their respective section in confusion and bewilderment. There was little else to do but head to the Pavilion and see what new information had arisen, and a thin trickle of talented musicians made their way through the trees to gather in a almost ceremonial half-circle in the middle of the Pavilion.

Gathered in front of them was the full complement of Band directors. They were accompanied by a tall, lanky man in his early twenties, dressed in a dress shirt and gray slacks. He clutched a pale maroon briefcase in his hands and his presence only added to the subtle feeling of unease.

"We have," began Mr. Defton without preamble, "A situation. And we are going to remedy this in any way possible, as quickly as possible. I don't need smart-aleck remarks. I don't need jokes. What I need is your full and total cooperation as students and as musicians." He paused for effect. "Do I have it?"

Even more astounded by this sudden shift in intensity, the students gathered were the best of the best and dedicated almost-professionals.

"You're got our support, whatever it is." Charlie said slowly from the front of the group. "But what's more, you've also got our attention."

The band director nodded quietly. "I knew I would. Please, have a seat. This might seem a little strange to you."

-

Author's Note: Mad apologies for the length of time this has taken. Things have been speeding out of control lately and it's taken me a while to put two and two back together. As it is, enjoy, and hopefully you won't tire of the marching band spiel and we advance into concert season. The drama will continue to increase. ::wink:: All for now,

~adulaith 


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